Resident congestion moaner here... we've moved to petitioning for better broadband along with another area just north of Dunedin. So far the reception within the community has been great with quite a few signing the petition while dropping the forms off.

Hoping for the best expecting the worst.

Latest graph of our congestion issues...

As a resident in Outram for the last 9 years I've noticed reducing quality of our Broadband Internet especially in the last year or so. I've been monitoring the speeds and have found our peak time evening speeds can reduce to 10-15% of the highest recorded speed we can get when we are all sleeping. This makes homework take longer especially with more utilisation of the incredible School Ultranet. Videos pause and re-buffer, downloads take longer and businesses needing to upload documents, photos, drawings etc have to wait 10-20 times longer than those on the slowest UFB plans. A friend in town recently got the slowest UFB fibre plan, he gets 33 times the peak time evening speed we endure.

We had Clare Curran here a few weeks ago so I discussed this and our patchy cellular coverage. Clare sent letters to Telecom, Vodafone and Chorus with my concerns; they all came back incredibly unhelpful. As Outram is outside both the Ultra-Fast Broadband and Rural Broadband Initiative (DSL) areas our coverage is as good as it's going to get and there are no plans to upgrade our telephone exchange.

Plan prices and data caps on the Wireless Broadband services are prohibitive for families on a budget. So what can we do...?

Clare Curran is supporting us with a petition to the House of Representatives which I have endorsed and fully support. There are petition forms at the School Office, Dairy, Cafes, Pub, Medical Centre, Petrol Station etc, I also hope to get out and knock on doors to get as many people to sign the petition as I can. Please support this petition by adding your name and signing it. If we miss out on getting UFB or our exchange upgraded, similar to more rural cabinets, we will have to suffer with a poor quality, slow, congested just when you want to use it service, but continue to pay as much as or more than our friends in town.

Accorinding to Vodafone's RBI page , Outram will get improved wireless RBI coverage eventually, so its unlikely Chorus will do anything to improve the DSL given that the goverment has funded the area for wireless RBI.

http://www.vodafone.co.nz/broadband/rural/
But Outram school has a fibre connection, why doesn't the Outram community trust. ( which also appears to be hosting a word for word copy of your petition) look into running a community based Wifi connection off their Fibre, given the size of Outram it would probably be the cheapest solution all around....

I feel your pain my friend , in Warrington north of Dunedin we have the same congestion issue .I saw your article yesterday and a article about the other area you speak of north of Dunedin Karitane .How can I get hold of a petition template to canvas my local area . I have already sent a petition letter to chorus and they replied with saying the local community would have to come up with $45,000 + gst for some sort of a upgrade.

@wellygary Clare Curran sent letters to Telecom, Vodafone and Chorus regarding our issues. Telecom are upgrading the Mauangatu cell site but that doesn't help here. Vodafone have already upgraded their Mosgiel cell site for Wireless RBI but current plan prices/caps are not family friendly. Chorus "currently have no plans" to upgrade the exchange as it's outside UFB and RBI (DSL) areas, they suggested Wireless RBI. With the cabinets outside of town getting RBI (DSL) upgrades and having 282 dwellings (more to come) and 700 odd residents hooking into the schools fibre could end up causing congestion issues again we felt it best to try having the exchange upgraded first. The Outram Charitable Trust is full steam ahead with the 2015 Goldfields Cavalcade so this can't be handled as well.

@Axeman480 I'm convinced as Chorus have reduced the number of handover points to two for the BUBA service that is where our congestion issues arise from, thus you'll have very similar results as us. I saw Clare was helping there as well, she would need to make a petition specifically for your area as the one for Outram covers it only. You're lucky Chorus have given you an option, $45k, find out what you'd get for that and if it's new Backhaul and ADSL2/VDSL2 go for it. We had no offer as it would be quite a bit more which is why they won't just upgrade our exchange as there is no business case for them, plenty of social case...

A community wireless network would be the best option. You would get change from $10k (depending on size) and speeds would be what the community wants. Just need to find a firm to install it for you and then the community can manage it from then on.

NZtimbo: You're lucky Chorus have given you an option, $45k, find out what you'd get for that and if it's new Backhaul and ADSL2/VDSL2 go for it. We had no offer as it would be quite a bit more which is why they won't just upgrade our exchange as there is no business case for them, plenty of social case...

Not to sound negative, but.. Chorus are a business, not a charity. If it does not make financial sense, then you're unlikely to get anywhere. This is why government and council entities need to perhaps be more involved in subsidising the cost for providers to bring these services to some communities.

If this Clare Curran is your local MP, perhaps rather than writing to for-profit corporates and going "Please lose money here", they would perhaps be better organising some deal whereby some portion of the up-front cost is subsidised, such that it does become financially viable to proceed.

NZtimbo: You're lucky Chorus have given you an option, $45k, find out what you'd get for that and if it's new Backhaul and ADSL2/VDSL2 go for it. We had no offer as it would be quite a bit more which is why they won't just upgrade our exchange as there is no business case for them, plenty of social case...

Not to sound negative, but.. Chorus are a business, not a charity. If it does not make financial sense, then you're unlikely to get anywhere. This is why government and council entities need to perhaps be more involved in subsidising the cost for providers to bring these services to some communities.

If this Clare Curran is your local MP, perhaps rather than writing to for-profit corporates and going "Please lose money here", they would perhaps be better organising some deal whereby some portion of the up-front cost is subsidised, such that it does become financially viable to proceed.

I agree, I was going to say the same but thought ill leave your cause alone and not cause a mutany. But yes Chorus is a business. Ill ask a question. If you were a courier with a 10 wheel truck. Would you deliver 1 parcel to 1 potential customer 200 kms away today rather than it get done locally every 2nd day but get paid no more than you were to in town?

NZtimbo: Vodafone have already upgraded their Mosgiel cell site for Wireless RBI but current plan prices/caps are not family friendly.

So its just that a rural community wanting urban pricing? And not wanting to pay actually reasonable pricing.

Chorus gets funded for providing telephone lines to rural households at the same price as urban, subsidised by the urban users, so the community is lucky there. But they dont get funding for providing broadband as there are other reasonably priced options (RBI) which of course the community will still complain is much too expensive.

Ray TaylorTaylor Broadband (rural hawkes bay)www.ruralkiwi.com

There is no place like localhostFor my general guide to extending your wireless network Click Here

In cases like this, where the local school has fibre, you're best to look for community based options.After all the speeds lower when the kids come home from school, so the school fibres just sitting idling whilst the community crys out for more

you could try talking to the wireless provider, if there were enough users they may be able to offer sharper prices, get more backhaul to the area etc. but if can upgrade the dslam for 45,000 maybe that's not a bad path to go down if enough of you are keen.

oxnsox: In cases like this, where the local school has fibre, you're best to look for community based options.After all the speeds lower when the kids come home from school, so the school fibres just sitting idling whilst the community crys out for more

are schools allowed to resell internet? it seems dodgy in a way to me. although if the school can get fibre, it should be possible for a dslam to get fibre, or a wireless provider.

oxnsox: In cases like this, where the local school has fibre, you're best to look for community based options.After all the speeds lower when the kids come home from school, so the school fibres just sitting idling whilst the community crys out for more

are schools allowed to resell internet? it seems dodgy in a way to me. although if the school can get fibre, it should be possible for a dslam to get fibre, or a wireless provider.

The school is not, however an ISP can use the school's fibre connection and light up the second/third/fourth ports on the ONT and rent their roofspace for a microwave radio link to feed a nearby tower. So long as the ISP's use of the fibre is secondary to the schools own use.

The ministry has provided a handbook for school boards and distinctly makes it clear that it is illegal for a school itself to become an ISP, but they may lease their resources for profit to the ISP. The idea is that the money bought in from the ISP leasing roofspace will go towards buying IT equipment or whatever the school wants.

However there is a $10k outlay at least for a small radio based system, and if the local telephone cabinet was unbundled, then probably $30k for them to unbundle it and put in a DSLAM with a tie cable

Ray TaylorTaylor Broadband (rural hawkes bay)www.ruralkiwi.com

There is no place like localhostFor my general guide to extending your wireless network Click Here

With the cabinets outside of town getting RBI (DSL) upgrades and having 282 dwellings (more to come) and 700 odd residents hooking into the schools fibre could end up causing congestion issues again we felt it best to try having the exchange upgraded first.

No it wouldn't.

You don't share the school's connection (and aren't allowed to), any RSP who wanted to partake in this would use the Chorus fibre to deploy their own connection to the school.

The problem is that getting say a 100Mbps connection into literally the middle of nowhere isn't cost effective. While it's great to have the ability to use this fibre, the economics aren't going to stack up in most areas.

Rather than simply signing petitions you need people to get serious about committing to a solution. The big problem is the minute you tell them it'll cost more than their current broadband they're not going to interested. The community is the solution to your issue, not sending letters to a telco. There are many communities in similar situations, and ultimately wireless RBI is the broadband solution for these people. Chorus can't afford to invest in these loss making areas with the financial troubles they are facing due to the campaign against them.